Utilization of sidestreams from processing of plant materials or fermentation residues, such as cereal bran from milling or Distillers dried spent grain with solubles (DDGS) has received little attention beyond use in animal feeds.
Most of the prior art describes the use of enzymes in flour and in dough and not for sidestreams or by-products of industrial processes.
It has recently been shown by e.g. Courtin et. al Journal of the science of food and agriculture. 88. p 2517-2522 (2008) and by Cloetens et al, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 27, No. 4, 512-518 (2008), that the solubilised bran has a better nutritional effect than the insoluble bran in chickens.
Swennen et al. Journal of the science of food and agriculture, 2006, vol. 86, 1722-1731, relates to large-scale production and characterisation of wheat bran arabinoxylooligosaccharides.
WO2008000050 relates to methods for making soluble arabinoxylans as co-product of fermentation of whole-grain cereals.
WO2008087167 relates to methods for increasing the level of water-soluble arabinoxylan oligosaccharides in situ in baked products.
Prevention of oxidative degradation of food and feed products is very important for the preservation of the quality of the products. Oxidation processes in the products can lead to changes in color, flavour, aroma or other organoleptic unacceptable changes. Furthermore, oxidation may cause damage to essential amino acids and result in the loss of vitamins. In particular, food products containing polyunsaturated fatty acids are susceptible to oxidation, potentially resulting in rancid food products.
An oxidation reaction occurs when a food molecule, e.g. a fatty acid, combines with oxygen in the presence of free radicals; trace metals, such as Fe and Cu; or reactive oxygen species, such as singlet oxygen, peroxides or hydroperoxide. Antioxidants have commenly been used to suppress these reactions. Examples of generally utilized antioxidants are butylhydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylhydroxytoluene (BHT), which are mostly used in foods that are high in fats and oils, as well as sulfites, which are used primarily as antioxidants to prevent or reduce discoloration of fruits and vegetables. However, BHA and BHT may not be safe for human health and sulfites are known to destroy vitamin B. For these reasons, biological or natural antioxidants, such as, tocopherol (Vitamin E), L-ascorbic acid, citric acid, melanoidin, flavonoids and gallic acid are generally preferred. Chelating agents such as EDTA, siderohores (iron chelating agents from microorganisms), citric acid and lactobionic acid have also been used to address problems with oxidation due to their ability to prevent trace metals from provoking oxidation.
There is a need in the art for better methods for reducing oxidation processes, in particular for the utilisation of sidestreams from processing of plant materials, such as cereal bran from milling, soap stocks from refining of vegetable oils, Distillers dried spent grain with solubles (DDGS), wherein less of the plant material will go to low price applications like cattle feed. Furthermore, it is a long felt need to be able to utilise the bran fraction from cereals in traditionally, already existing cereal products, without significant impact on the product appearance/structure, the color or the taste, and to make it possible to increase the health and nutritional effect of already exisiting products.